Blend of Ethics, Politics and Stylistics in Trauma Narrative: McEwan’s Social and Political Critique via Trauma Presentation in Saturday

Abstract

McEwan blends ethics, politics and stylistics in the psychic exploration of the characters in his trauma-based novel Saturday (2005), revealing the traumatic process and the characters’ post-traumatic life using linguistic and stylistic sources with great expertise. He adopts variable narrative means for trauma reconfiguration; after that, the narrative strategy is subject to ethical scrutiny. His trauma narration expounds on the major character's desolation and establishes the links trauma proceedings with the contemporary social and political framework. Via trauma narrative in this novel, McEwan explores the ethical and social implications of major traumatic events such as the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre. His representation of never-ending traumatic aftereffects, causing an individual’s alienation from others, endorses that McEwan expands individual trauma scope for an ethical and social critique of the contemporary world.